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rjmerr
Participant
June 5, 2009
Question

Automatically formatting tables in generated Word doc

  • June 5, 2009
  • 1 reply
  • 1279 views

I've been searching for a solution to this problem but haven't found one yet—hope this explanation makes sense.

I have a RoboHelp 7 HTML project that I am exporting as Printed Documentation (Word 2007 document). The document has a large number of tables, and in the generated Word document many of them are broken across pages.  I am looking for a way to pre-format the tables so the "allow row to break across pages" option is de-selected for the entire table, and the "repeat as header row" option is selected for the first row.

I created a .dotx template in which I edited the default table style to include the above options. (In Word 2007, the default table style is "Table Grid.") When I create a new .doc file using this template and use the Insert-->Table function, it creates a new table with the options I want. However, when I generate the printed doc from RoboHelp using the same .dotx template, it generates tables with the style "Table Normal," which allows rows to break across pages and does not repeat the header row. The "Table Normal" style in Word 2007 does not seem to be modifiable (option is greyed out).

I looked at the HTML in RoboHelp and saw that all my tables have the table class=NormalTable, so I tried making a table style in Word called NormalTable and set it as the default table style. However, when I generate the Word doc from RoboHelp, the tables still have the style "Table Normal."

The table class "NormalTable" was not present in my .css file, so I added it, but it didn't make any difference. It still wants to map the RoboHelp table style to the Word "Table Normal" style that does not have the options I want.

Any ideas for how I can generate the tables correctly?

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1 reply

Peter Grainge
Community Expert
Peter GraingeCommunity Expert
Community Expert
June 5, 2009

This will have to be done post generation of the Word document.

Last time I checked RH did generate the tables without the Allow Rows to Break option and in my case, that was not the required result. Take a look at this page on my site. There is a macro that finds each table in a Word document and then allows you to format it or move on to the next table.

http://www.grainge.org/pages/authoring/word/word_macros.htm

The bit in the middle of the macro is what does the formatting and you can amend that to suit your needs.

You will have some work setting it up to work your way but you will find it easy after that.

See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

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rjmerrAuthor
Participant
June 5, 2009

Thanks. I figured I'd never be completely rid of post-conversion editing, but I've been trying to minimize the work needed.

As it stands, I end up doing some Find/Replace operations anyway, to correct the styles that refuse to map properly—I'll consider the table formatting another necessary task.

Thanks for your input.

Robert

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